DIY: Home Office Closet Organization

When we moved into our new home last fall, our home office became a dumping ground for papers, files, and stuff that didn't have a place. Scratch that. I'm lying. This problem stems back to our first home - the office was disorganized then too. I hope I'm not the only one who seems to have this issue.

The coffee table in this room became the stomping ground for paperwork, stuff that needed to be taken care of, and filing. For your own benefit, I didn't take a before shot. Trust me, you'll thank me. Basically, this table was littered with clutter. And although I walked by it everyday and said to myself that I really needed to deal with it, I didn't. I put it off to another day.

Well, that other day came and I decided it needed to be taken care of. No, that's a lie too. I was forced into dealing with it - my brother-in-law and his girlfriend recently moved in with us until their new home would be ready this fall. This room would become their "living room" since there is a couch in here and plenty of room. But, the chaos that this table had become needed to be taken care of before they moved in. And to save my sanity. Even just a little bit.

The main problem we were facing was storage - the lack of storage. We have a desk with no drawers and two Ikea Billy bookcases. The bookcases helped with some of the clutter, but not all of it. After organizing the bookcases, we were left with office and art supplies, scrapbooking stuff, fabric samples, ribbon, filing - you get the idea.

The solution was to redo the closet in the home office with built-in shelving. But, we didn't want it to be a permanent change since we may need to use this closet for clothes storage at some point in the future.

Here is a look at the under-utilized closet before (yup, it's pretty much empty):

And here is the AFTER:

First, we removed the two small rods to make way for the shelving units. The shelving units we found at Canadian Tire for less than $40 each. They are far from fancy, but they do the trick. And when the time may come when we need to convert this closet back for clothes storage, we can easily use these shelving units in the basement or garage, and simply reinstall the rods.

Once the shelving units were installed, it was just a matter of figuring out what needed a place and how I was going to organize it. The storage boxes are all from IKEA. I bought varying sizes to accommodate anything and everything that I have, plus room to grow. I also decided to give the storage box labels more personality by using scrapbook paper rather than the plain white labels that come with.

The left side of the storage unit houses my 3-hole punch, paper cutter, camera (and bag), and my filing box (for household bills, house documents, etc).

Storing printer paper can become messy since it needs to stay in a proper place to not be damaged. So, I decided to put my paper - printer paper, lined and holed paper, and legal-size cardstock (for design boards) - in a tiered organizer that I got from IKEA.

The right side of the unit holds a variety of storage boxes for markers, ribbon, scrapbooking accessories, and fabric samples.

It really is that simple. Now we have loads of storage space in a previously unused closet. Easy peasy.

(You'll get to see more of our home office as I slowly redo it).